EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ACCOUNT BASED MARKETING: A B2B Marketer’s Guide to Reaching High Value Targets

B2B marketers are regularly tasked with delivering new leads to sales. Increasingly, marketers are

being tasked with a new standard of quality for those leads. Traditional approaches to marketing have focused

on volume and reach which don’t always translate into high-value sales or a fast-moving funnel. Account Based

Marketing, or ABM, takes a different approach and focuses on a targeted group of prospects

and accounts that are smaller, but often much higher in value.

There are many benefits to using an ABM approach, such as ease of personalization, segmentation, and

streamlining of internal resources. However, there are even more compelling reasons to use this type of

program – like increased ROI.

According to ITSMA data, 97% said ABM had a somewhat higher or much higher ROI than other initiatives, and 84% said ABM provided significant benefits to retaining and expanding client relationships.

With such compelling data supporting an Account Based Marketing approach, how can you get started with

(or evolve) your ABM program?

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ACCOUNT BASED MARKETING:

A B2B MARKETER’S GUIDE TO REACHING HIGH VALUE TARGETS

Everything You Need to Know About Account Based Marketing 1

Have a list of target accounts already? Great, now you must make sure that your CRM is up to date with all

pertinent information. Then you can start creating a plan to ensure you have a list to identify and engage

those users. Information such as last contact date, company location, current point of contact (email,

phone, title) may seem like small details, but ensuring your data is accurate will set the stage for a successful

program targeting your most valuable prospects.

In addition to your company list, having defined personas outlined will create a strong framework for an

ABM approach. Knowing the companies you’d like to target is helpful, but you also need to have the correct

internal stakeholders defined to target. Another element to consider as you create and segment your

company and persona lists is company size. While enterprise companies can be easier to target through

traditional media approaches, smaller companies may be a bit more elusive. IP targeting and cookie

matching methods are often best-suited for large targets, while smaller company targets may be easier to

reach through less automated approaches.

If you haven’t compiled your company or persona, a good place to start is looking at your closed business

and seeing what patterns arise. Compile and analyze key attributes such as challenges, digital behavior, and

firmographic data. These patterns can show you how and where to start building your Target Account List.

Don’t focus only on net new prospects. Most ABM programs are a combination of new prospects plus existing

accounts that have potential growth. Growth potential can be found within other departments or business

units, or as an expanded footprint within current engagements. When building your target account list, start

with a small list and expand as you see success.

Everything You Need to Know About Account Based Marketing 2

UNDERSTANDING YOUR TARGETS

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Everything You Need to Know About Account Based Marketing 3

ABM APPROACHESMedia, which represents some of the more widely-known applications of Account Based Marketing, can be a

powerful tool in getting targeted messages to your specific prospects – and at scale. There are a variety of

vendors that specialize in allowing companies to manage account-based interactions within channels

(such as advertising or on-site experience).

This approach allows you to abandon a one-size-fits-all approach to your marketing. You can target your

accounts with personalized messaging, offers, and products. Looking at data from closed and lost deals, you

can understand what type of messaging resonated with similar accounts and personas and begin to build an

A/B testing calendar to create and refine your account based strategy.

LinkedIn offers target account capability through Sponsored Updates and InMail, allowing you to create and

deliver custom messages to segments of users found within your list of target accounts. Sponsored Updates

displays these messages in the main content feed on LinkedIn and InMail delivers them as sponsored (or

manual) LinkedIn email messages via their inbox. LinkedIn recently released Matched Audiences, which

allows marketers to use LinkedIn to retarget website visitors and market to contacts from customer

databases and automation platforms. That means you can re-engage website visitors with Sponsored

Updates, use LinkedIn ads to target by professional demographics, and engage customized audiences via

personalized emails and content collaterals.

Google offers Customer Match which allows you to show ads to your customers or prospects that have opted

into your database. You can upload your database lists and serve specific ads to users who are signed into

their Google account . They will see your ads on Google Search, YouTube, and Gmail.

Companies like Madison Logic offer Content Syndication programs direct to targeted companies and titles

and can be done through various pricing models. Some of the easiest-to-execute programs are run through

a Cost Per Lead (CPL) model which allows companies to target specific accounts and titles on a pay-per-lead

model that is confirmed up front. This approach uses publisher networks to host content for download by

prospects, and lead information is delivered on an ongoing basis. Many programs run through this approach

can also include tele-verification and/or qualifying questions (such as “What is your timeline for purchasing

ERP software?”) to help further score leads.

Everything You Need to Know About Account Based Marketing 4

Account Based Marketing can also help you make real strides in competitive campaigns. By carefully

segmenting your accounts by competitors, you can craft messaging and content that speaks directly to your

competitive advantage. Tactics such as retargeting and/or PPC campaigns can help you target and be seen by

your prospects – and help displace the incumbent.

DON’T STOP ONCE YOU GET THEIR ATTENTIONBut, as any B2B marketer knows, getting noticed by your prospect is just the tip of the iceberg. Now that you’ve

broken through the noise by using highly-personalized messages and offers delivered to your highest-value accounts,

don’t waste that effort by stopping there.

As you continue to engage with your target accounts, make sure the experience is seamless – or else you risk losing

them. 65% [of buyers] will come away from [the buyer journey] frustrated by inconsistent experiences (McK-insey). Involving sales, social, and web teams is imperative to ensure the prospect continues to have a personalized

and relevant conversation with your brand. Vendors like DemandBase help create a more personalized experience

as you engage with users on your website. If at all possible, recognize that you know this prospect both in digital and

human interaction. Help sales utilize similar personalization and nurturing approaches that marketing employs to

enable meaningful conversations and avoid generic interactions. This is especially helpful for sales when trying to

upsell or cross-sell existing accounts.

Nurturing programs that are sent to your target accounts should be even more personalized than existing programs.

Continue to personalize the content and offers found within the messages, but also remember to segment and

personalize based on company name, industry, and challenges or solutions with which they originally engaged.

Individual customer stakeholders who perceived supplier content to be tailored to their specific needs were 40% more willing to buy from that supplier than stakeholders who didn’t (CEB in Harvard Business Review).

Everything You Need to Know About Account Based Marketing 5

For example, if you have a data storage company on your target account list, you may want to highlight a case study

that shows success you’ve had within that industry or even highlight some tactics their competitors are doing that

you think might resonate or grab their attention. Show them you know their world and can help them reach their

business goals.

Pair nurturing with virtual events and offline efforts. If you are attending an industry event, make sure you reach out

to your target accounts and make your sales team available for 1:1 face-to-face conversations. As you start to see

success within specific account segments, plan for a virtual event to focus on that sub-segment of your prospects.

For example, if the financial services sector has seen success within your ABM advertising efforts, a nice complement

would be to host a webinar targeted to that industry as a value-add and to continue to build confidence within that

segment. Additionally, pairing direct mail (yes – snail mail!) with digital efforts can have a lift in overall conversion

rates – with up to 1.5 times more revenue driven.

MEASUREMENTAs with any successful marketing campaign, you must ensure you are measuring your results – and ensure you

are measuring the RIGHT data. With an ABM approach, you need to segment your analysis by what stage and

tactic you are utilizing even if the end goal is to penetrate target accounts. For example, early effort success

could be measured by awareness and website visits while later-stage efforts may be judged on funnel

progression or revenue contribution.

Maintaining overall KPIs focused on account penetration paired with deeper and more focused stage and

channel-focused metrics is essential to continuing to evolve your approach. The measurement and analysis of

data may be focused around various types (awareness, website lift or direct response), but the result of the anal-

ysis should all serve a similar purpose: understanding what is working and what is not working. No marketing

program should be static – and an ABM approach is no different. An ongoing cadence of

evaluation, testing, and optimizing is the key to penetrating high value target accounts.

Everything You Need to Know About Account Based Marketing 6

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

A B O U T B U S I N E S S O N L I N E

We are a performance-driven digital marketing agency headquartered in San Diego, CA with offices in Boston, MA. Founded in 1996, we are born from technology and have specific B2B expertise. We believe the job of the modern-day B2B marketer has never been

more important or complicated, often having complex products, long, highly-consultative sales cycles and various personas involved. By leveraging data, we gain deep insights about the specific needs of our clients’ customers in each phase of their buying journey and

align digital marketing efforts to meet those needs and measure ROI.

Our turnkey marketing analytics and reporting service is DataWeld, by BusinessOnline. We bring you marketing analysis and insights that make your programs and teams more effective. Comprised of developers and analysts paired with marketing technologists, our team uses our data management infrastructure designed specifically to solve B2B digital marketing challenges. Our passion is taking

complex data and extracting simple, actionable recommendations for the growth of your business.

BusinessOnline was recognized as the “Small Agency of the Year” by the BMA B2 Awards, and is a Premier Google Partner, Kenshoo Certified and a HubSpot Certified Partner. We work with clients like HP, Lithium Technologies, GE, TDS Telecommunication, Epicor.

www.businessol.com

Rachel ReadyVice President, Digital Marketing | BusinessOnline

Rachel brings together the talent, ideas, and technology of BusinessOnline to help brands drive meaningful business results. She manages and directs the integrated strategy and channel execution team as well as the overall marketing

efforts within the agency.

Prior to joining BusinessOnline, Rachel worked in multiple client-side roles in respected and well-known brands. She has experience in multiple verticals including: software, retail, government, finance and consumer goods. Her marketing

experience spans 10+ years and encompasses all areas of digital marketing.

Rachel is a thought leader in the marketing space, writes on a variety of digital marketing topics, and has lectured at San Diego State University. Rachel holds a B.A. from the University of Florida and an M.S. from Pace University. She has

been recognized as a 2015 finalist for the Agency Professional of the Year by SDX and Women Who Mean Business

Finalist by the San Diego Business Journal.